(HOUSTON) — The boyfriend of the mother of an 8-year-old boy has been charged with murder after the child’s remains were discovered in a Houston home along with his three abandoned siblings, authorities said.
One of the children, a 15-year-old, called the authorities and said his brother had been dead for one year and his body was in the room next to his, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said Monday.
The Harris County Medical Examiner’s Office said the boy’s manner of death was a homicide, according to Houston ABC station KTRK.
His mother, Gloria Williams, 35, now faces multiple charges, including injury to a child by omission and tampering with evidence (human corpse), Gonzalez announced Tuesday night.
Her boyfriend, Brian Coulter, 31, has been charged in the murder of her son, who was 8 years old at the time of his death in 2020, the sheriff said.
Both Williams and Coulter are in custody and additional charges are expected, he said.
The 15-year-old and the other two children — boys under the age of 10 — were found home alone on Sunday, the sheriff said.
Both younger kids “appeared malnourished and showed signs of physical injury,” he tweeted.
Deputies also “found skeletal remains of a small child,” the sheriff said.
All three children were taken to the hospital, he said. Their conditions were not released.
Authorities believe the parents hadn’t lived in the home for several months, Gonzalez said.
Prior to their arrest, the children’s mother and her boyfriend were found late Sunday night and had been interviewed and released, Gonzalez said Monday.
The investigation is ongoing, the sheriff said.
At a news conference Sunday, Gonzalez called it a “horrific situation.”
“I have been in this business for a long time and I had never heard of a scenario like this,” he said.
(WASHINGTON) — “I don’t know where in the hell I belong,” Sen. Joe Manchin, the West Virginia Democrat, said Tuesday when when asked about possibly switching parties amid his stubborn bargaining with frustrated fellow Democrats and President Joe Biden.
Manchin said people approach him “every day” about doing so, and that it would be an easy decision. But he insisted he won’t, speaking out in a revealing interview with Economic Club for Growth Chairman David Rubenstein.
“Is that the purpose of being involved in public service? Because it’s easy?” Manchin asked. “Do you think by having a “D” or an “R” or an “I” is going to change who I am?” he said, adding he didn’t believe Republicans would be any more pleased with him than Democrats are right now.
He called being the only statewide Democratic public official in his home state “very lonely,” but said he understands why his constituents mostly vote for Republicans.
“My little state has never complained. We’ve done all the heavy lifting — we’ve done the mining, we’ve made the steel, we’ve done everything it took for this country to be a the superpower of the world,” Manchin said. “And all of a sudden they took a breath and looked back and we’re not good enough, we’re not clean enough, we’re not green enough, we’re not smart enough, so to hell with you. So, they said, ‘Well, to hell with you, too.'”
With Democrats holding onto a razor-thin margin in the Senate, Manchin has emerged as a pivotal player in Democratic efforts to pass the president’s agenda.
He said he doesn’t think there is anything “fun” about being the decisive vote in the Senate — but it’s led to breakfast meetings at Biden’s Delaware home and given him the upper hand in driving the direction of the massive social spending package, including what amounts to a veto power over provisions he doesn’t like.
That includes sticking to a much lower $1.5 top-line price tag for the social spending package he set at the start — something Democrats and Biden are still negotiating with him about this week, months later.
He commented on Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s decision in June to use the fast-track budget process known as reconciliation to bypass Republican blocking efforts.
“I don’t think we should be running the government through reconciliation, because it’s not lasting,” Manchin said he told Schumer.
He also reaffirmed Tuesday that he’s opposed to changing the Senate’s filibuster rule — just days after Biden himself suggested he could support exceptions for fundamental Democratic priorities such as voting rights and election reform — and maybe more.
While that would give Democrats breathing room to pass key agenda items, without Republicans keeping the measures from even getting a vote, Manchin said it’s important that the minority party retains some political power and that all sides pursue bipartisanship.
And he offered some behind-the-scenes color about how he’s been bargaining with Biden, who’s eager to secured his support.
“The president and I had this conversation, I said, ‘Mister President, I don’t know who put this out, but that’s screwed up,'” Manchin said, speaking about a proposal to help pay for his spending plan by having the IRS track annual transactions of $600 or more from individual bank accounts. After GOP backlash, the administration last week backed off the idea to catch tax evaders, raising the triggering amount to more than $10,000.
Manchin wasn’t happy.
“Do you understand how messed up that is?” he said he told the president. “This cannot happen. It’s screwed up.”
“He says, ‘I think Joe’s right on that,’ Manchin told Rubenstein. “So, I think that one’s going to be gone.”
(WASHINGTON) — Three of President Joe Biden’s major nominees were confirmed to ambassadorships by the Senate on Tuesday.
Former Sen. Jeff Flake, an Arizona Republican who left office in 2019, was confirmed as ambassador to Turkey, while former Democratic Sen. Tom Udall of New Mexico was confirmed to be ambassador to New Zealand.
Cindy McCain, the wife of late GOP Sen. John McCain, was confirmed to the rank of ambassador during her tenure of service as U.S. Representative to the United Nations Agencies for Food and Agriculture.
All three nominees were confirmed unanimously.
Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, a Democrat, asked for unanimous consent to confirm Cindy McCain. Kelly was mentored by John McCain prior to his death in 2018 and won his Senate seat last year. Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, also of Arizona, was presiding over the Senate when the nomination was confirmed and was visibly excited.
Flake and McCain were some of Biden’s most ardent Republican supporters during the 2020 presidential election. They were censured by the Arizona Republican Party in January for their staunch criticism of former President Donald Trump.
“When I began in the Republican Party officially, the Republican party was the party of inclusion. It was the party of generosity. It was the party of ‘country first,'” Cindy McCain said of the censure. “We have lost our way and it’s time that we get back on track.”
“I truly hope that as things progress on, and we get further away from this mess that occurred, that we can do just that,” she added. “We can get back on track and remind everyone that we are here for the country and not our party.”
(WASHINGTON) — The U.S. Border Patrol agents at the center of a controversy stemming from their use of horses to block Haitian migrants from entering the U.S. have not yet been questioned more than a month after the incident took place, according to a law enforcement official.
Images of mounted patrol agents using their horses to push back migrants, mostly Haitian, stirred national controversy as an unprecedented number attempted to cross the Rio Grande into the small border town of Del Rio, Texas, in September. The Department of Homeland Security launched an internal investigation into the matter shortly after the images came out.
Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas promised a swift investigation into the horse patrol over a month ago, assuring lawmakers it would yield findings days later. As of publication, and despite multiple requests for comment from ABC News, the administration has not publicly announced any findings.
Preliminary findings from Customs and Border Protection’s Office of Professional Responsibility have been handed over to the Justice Department to determine if criminal charges are warranted, according to two officials who were not authorized to speak publicly.
One law enforcement official said the internal investigation could not proceed, and the agents directly involved could not be interviewed, until the U.S. attorney makes a determination.
Referrals to U.S. attorneys are common in federal law enforcement personnel matters and do not necessarily indicate that criminal charges are being considered. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Texas, which includes Del Rio, declined to comment.
“The investigation is ongoing,” a DHS spokesperson said in a statement to ABC News. “The Department is committed to a thorough, independent, and objective process. We are also committed to transparency and will release the results of the investigation once it is complete.”
Advocates for both migrants and the agents have been frustrated with the pace of the investigation so far.
Karen Tumlin, founder of the Justice Action Center, said a central concern is that the government has deported potential witnesses to federal police brutality in the time it has taken to conduct the investigation.
“[The delay] creates an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ issue,” Tumlin said. “That was their intention.”
Over the two-week period that migrants surged into Del Rio, border officials stopped about 29,000 of them, according to the Department of Homeland Security. More than 15,000 either returned to Mexico on their own or were sent to Haiti on rapid expulsion flights. About 1,800 were placed in U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention and some 13,000 were released on conditions to report back to authorities.
Jon Anfinsen, a Border Patrol agent and union leader, confirmed the mounted patrol agents remain on administrative duties, which he said has impacted the unit’s ability to perform their normal patrol work.
The horse patrol appears to be back up and running in Del Rio, Texas, despite silence from the Biden administration on the results of the internal probe. Use of the horse patrol was stopped at the Del Rio International Bridge in the days following the confrontations.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki was unequivocal in announcing the end to the use of Border Patrol horses in Del Rio last month, calling it a “policy change.” DHS officials clarified at the time that it was only a temporary suspension.
“The secretary also conveyed to civil rights leaders earlier this morning that we would no longer be using horses in Del Rio,” Psaki said at a Sept. 23 White House press briefing. “So that is something — a policy change that has been made in response.”
A CBP official who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly disputed Psaki’s characterization.
“They pulled all horse patrol agents for maybe a day or so to process,” the official said referring to the administrative duties agents are required to perform when migrants flood the area. “Then it was right back to normal sector-wide, with the exception of a couple more agents under scrutiny.”
A photo posted to the USBP Del Rio Sector’s Facebook page on Oct. 7 shows Border Patrol agents on horseback detaining a group of men huddled on the ground.
(GROVELAND, Fla.) — More than 70 years after four Black men were accused of raping a white woman in 1949, Florida State Attorney Bill Gladson has filed a motion to posthumously clear the “Groveland Four” of their criminal records.
“Even a casual review of the record reveals that these four men were deprived of the fundamental due process rights that are afforded to all Americans,” Gladson wrote in his motion filed Monday. “The evidence strongly suggests that a sheriff, a judge, and prosecutor all but guaranteed guilty verdicts in this case.”
Ernest Thomas, Charles Greenlee, Samuel Shepherd and Walter Irvin, all young Black men, were accused of raping a 17-year-old white woman in the central Florida town of Groveland. Following the accusation, an angry mob shot and killed Thomas before he could be arrested. Records show that the indictment against him was never dismissed by the court, according to Gladson’s motion.
Greenlee, Shepherd and Irvin were all put to trial and convicted.
Greenlee, who was 16 years old at the time, received a recommendation of mercy from the jury and received a life sentence. He did not appeal the verdict.
Irvin and Shepherd were sentenced to death and successfully made an appeal. In 1951, the U.S. Supreme Court vacated their convictions and ordered a new trial for each. Following the new indictment, Florida Sheriff Willis McCall shot and killed Shepherd and attacked and injured Irvin. Shepherd’s indictment, like Thomas’, was never dismissed. Irvin was retried, convicted and again sentenced to death, but later had his sentence commuted to life in prison.
Gladson filed the motion to dismiss the indictments of Thomas and Shepherd, and set aside and vacate the judgments and sentences of Greenlee and Irvin.
Several pieces of troubling information highlighted the problematic nature of their charges and convictions. Gladson argues that the state never had Irvin’s pants tested for the presence of semen, even though they could have, and instead left the jury with the impression that Irvin’s pants contained evidence of the rape.
The qualification of the prosecution’s star witnesses, who made shoe and tire casts from the scene, has also been called into question. One of the defense’s expert witnesses stated in the second trial that one of the casts was manufactured to falsely link Irvin to the scene.
Gladson also noted an email from the grandson of the state attorney who prosecuted the Groveland Four case that says state attorney Jesse Hunter and trial judge Truman Futch knew at the time of the second trial that there was no rape.
Now, if the court grants the Gladson’s motion, the legal presumption of innocence for these four men would be restored.
“While we are thankful the Florida Legislature apologized and the Board of Executive Clemency granted pardons, full justice depends on action from the judicial branch,” Carol Greenlee said in a statement. “I hope this motion will result in that full justice for my father Charles Greenlee, Walter Irvin, Samuel Shepherd, and Ernest Thomas.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis granted posthumous pardons to the men in 2019.
This isn’t the first time Black men may have been falsely or unfairly convicted for similar incidents.
In 1972, Federal District Judge Charles R. Scott vacated the convictions of Robert Shuler and Jerry Chatman, two Black men who were convicted of raping a white woman in Florida. The retrial was ordered when the woman hinted the assault may never have been committed.
In the 1980s, the Exonerated Five, previously known as the Central Park Five, were a group of Black and Hispanic teenagers who were convicted and later exonerated in connection with the rape and brutal assault on a white female jogger in New York.
(LONDON) — Britain’s Queen Elizabeth II will not travel to Scotland next week as planned as she continues to follow doctors’ advice to rest.
The queen had been scheduled to attend an evening reception next Monday at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference, or COP26, in Glasgow.
Instead, Queen Elizabeth, 95, will stay at Windsor Castle and deliver an address to attendees via a recorded video message, Buckingham Palace said in a statement Tuesday.
The palace noted the queen was “disappointed not to attend” and said she has been “undertaking light duties” at Windsor Castle and “following advice to rest.”
The queen spent one night in the hospital last week for “preliminary investigations.” She was released the next day, on Oct. 21, and was back at her desk at Windsor Castle that afternoon, a palace spokesperson confirmed last week.
The queen made her first public appearance since her hospitalization on Tuesday, when she held a virtual audience at Windsor Castle to receive South Korea’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Gunn Kim.
The queen, wearing a yellow dress and a pearl necklace, spoke with the ambassador via video link from the royal residence in England’s Berkshire county, where she has been staying since her hospitalization.
Last week, Queen Elizabeth hosted a reception at Windsor Castle for a global investment summit where she met with leaders, including Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and U.S. climate envoy John Kerry.
Just prior to her hospitalization, Queen Elizabeth was also forced to cancel a trip to Northern Ireland under orders from her medical team to rest.
(ATLANTA) — A statue of a Confederate soldier holding a rifle in a park less than a mile from the Georgia courthouse where three white men are on trial for killing Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man, has been hidden in plain sight, wrapped in sheets of plastic apparently to protect it from vandalism.
The monument that has stood for 119 years in the center of Hanover Square in Brunswick, Georgia, has become a lightning rod for discourse in the Glynn County community since Arbery was allegedly chased down and fatally shot in 2020 while, according to prosecutors, he was out for a Sunday jog.
Brunswick City Manager Regina McDuffie said the marble statue was wrapped in plastic by a local resident.
“A private citizen wanted to try to ensure the statue was not damaged since we just started the trial in the Arbery case,” McDuffie told ABC Jacksonville, Florida, affiliate WJXX. “It is not the city’s plan. We don’t have anything to do with it as far as how long it will stay [wrapped].”
The Brunswick City Commission voted in November 2020 to remove that statue, but no timeline was set. A Georgia Court of Appeals ruling in August that denied a motion to block the removal of Confederate monuments paved the way for the city to uproot the statue.
The statue was vandalized last year, spray-painted with the letters BLM (Black Lives Matter) on its pedestal.
The murder trial of the three men who prosecutors allege chased down and shot Arbery to death on Feb. 23, 2020, in the Satilla Shores neighborhood near Brunswick began last week with jury selection.
The accused are Gregory McMichael, 65, a retired police officer, his son, Travis McMichael, 35, and their neighbor, William “Roddie” Bryan, 52.
The three men have pleaded not guilty to charges of murder, aggravated assault and criminal attempt to commit false imprisonment.
The jury selection phase of the trial went into its sixth day on Tuesday. No jurors have been selected yet for the high-profile trial, which is expected to last a month.
About 1,000 Glynn County residents received jury-duty summonses in the case. Attorneys are attempting to whittle that number down to a pool of 64 qualified prospective jurors, of which 16, including four alternates, will be seated to hear the case. As of Tuesday afternoon, 32 would-be jurors have been chosen for the qualified pool.
Bryan’s attorney Kevin Gough claimed in court on Tuesday that protests occurring outside the courthouse are having undue influence on potential jurors. Gough asked Chatham County Superior Court Judge Timothy R. Walmsley, who was appointed to preside over the Glynn County trial, to “ban all protest or First Amendment activity from this area until the conclusion of this trial.”
(NEW YORK) — A weekend storm that brought extreme atmospheric river and historic rain to Northern California has raised water levels in several water bodies, namely Lake Tahoe, Lake Oroville and Yosemite Falls.
Yosemite Falls, which was announced to be “dry” last week by the Yosemite National Park, is back in action with flowing water after receiving at least 5 inches of rainfall from the weekend storm. Webcam footage from the park shows that the falls have water flowing through them again.
Following suit, water levels at Lakes Tahoe and Oroville in California have also risen as a result of the historic rainfall. The water level at Lake Tahoe rose above its natural rim at 6,223 feet after having fallen to approximately 6,222.88 feet.
Water levels at Lake Oroville currently stand at 656.01 feet above mean sea level after this weekend’s storm. Over the summer the lake reached a historic low amid exceptional drought causing the state’s Department of Water Resources to take a hydroelectric plant offline.
While the storm brought heavy downpour to the West coast, it didn’t alleviate the region from its climate concern of droughts and wildfires.
Several counties in California, Oregon, Washington and Nevada faced flooding, power outages and property damage. The storm also caused the deaths of two people in Fall City, Washington.
The storm is now headed to the mainland and East Coast, where states have already declared a state of emergency over flash flood warnings. Severe weather is expected in the states of Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Jersey and New York.
(NEW YORK) — 4From North Carolina to Maine, 45 million Americans are under alert for flooding rain and gusty winds as a nor’easter pummels the East Coast.
In New York and New Jersey, where governors declared states of emergency, roadways were drenched early Tuesday with up to 4 inches of rain.
Flash flooding was reported Tuesday morning in the Metuchen, New Jersey, area, prompting a flash flood warning. Water rescues were reported in New Jersey from Union Beach to Middletown.
The bulk of the heaviest rain and flooding then shifted to Long Island and Connecticut. The heaviest rain Tuesday afternoon will be across New England.
The nor’easter will strengthen off the coast by Tuesday evening, bringing another round of heavy rain from northern New Jersey to New York City to southeast New England.
The strongest winds are expected overnight from the Jersey Shore to Long Island to Cape Cod. Gusts could reach 60 to 70 mph.
The rain will end across most of the Northeast Tuesday night, with lingering showers expected in New England Wednesday morning. The storm will move out to sea Wednesday afternoon.
(HOUSTON) — The remains of a 9-year-old boy have been discovered in a Houston home along with his three abandoned siblings, authorities said.
One of the children, a 15-year-old, called the authorities and said his 9-year-old brother had been dead for one year and his body was in the room next to his, Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said Monday.
The Harris County Medical Examiner’s office said the boy’s manner of death was a homicide, according to ABC Houston station KTRK-TV.
The 15-year-old and the other two children — boys under the age of 10 — were found home alone on Sunday, the sheriff said.
Both younger kids “appeared malnourished and showed signs of physical injury,” he tweeted.
Deputies also “found skeletal remains of a small child,” the sheriff said.
All three children were taken to the hospital, he said. Their conditions were not released.
Authorities believe the parents hadn’t lived in the home for several months, Gonzalez said.
The children’s mother and her boyfriend were found late Sunday night and have been interviewed and released, Gonzalez said Monday.
The investigation is ongoing, the sheriff said, adding that no charges have been filed.
At a news conference Sunday Gonzalez called it a “horrific situation.”
“I have been in this business for a long time and I had never heard of a scenario like this,” he said.
